"Of course he'd say that. What did she tell you?"
"That it was his wish, but he was not to blame, and she would tell me more some other time. She looked so unutterably wretched that I couldn't ask any questions just then."
"Ah," said Bobby, softly. "I don't believe, poor child! that it was her doing, Eleanor."
"If it was Julian's," she said, "he must have had some good reason." And with that they both fell into thoughtful silence.
"I don't see," was her next objection, uttered musingly, "I don't see how they ever thought of Elizabeth in the first place. It seems such a wildly improbable idea."
"It certainly does," Bobby agreed. "Then Elizabeth, poor child, as it happens, rather put the idea into their heads herself. It seems that she went to the studio the day after the poisoning and insisted upon seeing him. She said she was his wife. D'Hauteville saw her, I believe, but he said nothing about it. It was the elevator man who told the story—he took her up and he heard D'Hauteville call her by her name. He says that D'Hauteville took her into the studio, and when she came out she was crying. And the man vows he heard her say 'I didn't do it, don't think I did it,' or something of the kind."
"Why, I never," broke in Mrs. Bobby, "heard anything so extraordinary. The man must have been drinking. It's impossible that Elizabeth could have done such a thing. Why, it was that day—that day"—she paused and thought—"that day after the murder," she continued, triumphantly, "I remember distinctly going to see her in the afternoon, and she was ill in bed with grippe, and her temperature very high."
"I can believe that," said Bobby, rather grimly, "after what she went through in the morning. For I'm afraid there's not much doubt, Eleanor, that it's true. One of the detectives, too, saw her pass through the hall, and I don't think that D'Hauteville denies it. They want him to testify at the inquest, but so far, they can't get him to say one thing or another."
"He would deny it, of course, if it were false," said Mrs. Bobby, in a low voice. Her husband bent his head. "Well," she said, rallying, "after all, I don't see anything in that. It would be pretty stupid, if she were really guilty, to defend herself before she was accused. No one but a fool would have done that, and the person who sent that poison couldn't have been a fool. And she wouldn't have gone near the studio; that's the last thing the real culprit would have done."
"That's what I say," said Bobby. "It doesn't seem on the face of it the act of a guilty woman. But they have some theory of hysterical remorse, and there is other evidence I haven't heard which fits into that. They say that when she heard that it had really happened she lost her head completely. There have been such cases, you know. Oh, and then another thing. They're comparing the handwriting on the package with the letters"—